Nanotechnology General News

(Nanowerk News) Cal/EPA´s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) today announced the selection of 27 members to the state´s new Green Ribbon Science Panel, an advisory panel created for California´s Green Chemistry program, an innovative approach to removing or reducing toxic chemicals in products sold in California.

The Green Ribbon Science Panel was established with passage of two landmark Green Chemistry laws signed last year by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (AB 1879 - Feuer and SB 509 - Simitian). The Panel will provide advice and act as a resource to DTSC and the California Environmental Policy Council pursuant to AB 1879, which directs the Department to develop regulations that: (1) create analytical methods for safer chemical alternatives, and (2) identify and prioritize chemicals of concern. Panel members will serve staggered three-year terms and may be reappointed with no limitations.

"I am pleased to make today´s announcement and trust that the distinguished panelists will soundly advise on development of the state´s Green Chemistry regulations," said DTSC Acting Director Maziar Movassaghi. "Since the Green Chemistry Initiative was launched in 2007, the Department has been honored to work on this exciting endeavor to bring safer, less toxic products into the marketplace. With our Green Chemistry efforts, California continues to be on the forefront of creating environmental policies with far-reaching global impacts."

Panel duties include:

Advising DTSC and the Council on scientific and technical matters in support of significantly reducing adverse health and environmental impacts of chemicals used in commerce, as well as the overall costs of those impacts to the state´s society;

Advising DTSC on the development green chemistry and chemicals policy recommendations and implementation strategies and details, and ensuring these recommendations are based on a strong scientific foundation;

Advising DTSC and making recommendations for chemicals the panel views as priorities for which hazard traits and toxicological end-point data should be collected;

Advising DTSC in the adoption of green chemistry regulations; and

Advising DTSC on any other pertinent matter in implementing AB 1879, as determined by DTSC

DTSC management selected the 27 panel members from more than 80 applicants based on the following criteria: education, expertise and practical experience in the fields shown above; experience serving on scientific and environmental policy advisory panels; and proven excellence with collaborative problem-solving skill and communication skills.

The initial meeting of the Panel will be held on April 29-30 at the Red Lion Inn in Sacramento. The Panel will meet a minimum of twice per year with additional meetings scheduled as needed.

Following is a list of members selected for the state´s new Green Ribbon Science Panel:

Ken Geiser, Ph.D., CO-CHAIR of the Panel, serves as Professor of Work Environment and as the Director of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He co-authored the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act and served as Director of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute from 1990 to 2003.

Deborah Raphael, CO-CHAIR of the Panel, has spent the last 15 years working within local government to design and implement programs around the reduction of hazardous chemicals used in city operations and consumer products. She is the Program Manager for the City & County of San Francisco´s Toxics Reduction and Green Building Programs.

William F. Carroll, Ph.D., CO-CHAIR of the Panel, is a Vice President of Occidental Chemical Corporation and an Adjunct Industrial Professor of Chemistry at Indiana University. He contributed to the United Nations Environment Programme's Best Available Techniques/Best Environmental Practices Guidelines for implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. In 2005 he was President of the American Chemical Society.

Ann Blake, Ph.D., is an independent consultant who has worked for 16 years in the area of environmental and public health regulation and chemicals policy reform at the local, regional, national and international levels. She worked for the California Environmental Protection Agency's Department of Toxic Substances Control as a hazardous waste inspector and Northern California Pollution Prevention Coordinator.

Jae Choi, Ph.D., has more than 40 years experience in industry and has been recognized as a "Green" materials and chemistry subject matter expert at the Avaya company. He holds 26 U.S. patents and has five other U.S. patents pending.

Bruce R. Cords, Ph.D., is Vice President for Environment, Food Safety and Public Health for Ecolab Inc., the world´s leading provider of cleaning, food safety and infection prevention products and services. He serves as Chairman of the Board of Advisors of the University of Georgia´s Center for Food Safety, and is a member of the Food Science and Nutrition Advisory Council at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Cords is a nationally recognized authority on foodborne disease and an industry expert on foodborne viruses.

George Daston, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow overseeing human safety research at Procter & Gamble Company. He has served as President of the Teratology Society, Councilor of the Society of Toxicology, on the U.S. EPA Board of Scientific Counselors, National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors, National Research Council´s Board of Environmental Studies and Toxicology, and National Children´s Study Advisory Committee.

Tod Delaney, Ph.D., is President of First Environment, Inc. and has more than 30 years of industry experience as a chemical and environmental health engineer. He currently serves as the International Convener for the new ISO 14066 standard for National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System and as chairman of the board for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is the Senior Scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund and has 25 years of experience in policy, hazard and risk assessment and management for chemicals and nanomaterials. Dr. Denison recently served on California´s Green Chemistry Initiative's Science Advisory Panel.

Arthur T. Fong, Ph.D., is a senior scientist/toxicologist at IBM and a member of the IBM Corporate Environmental Affairs team. He is a member of the Steering Committee and Technical Committee of the U.S. EPA Flame Retardants in Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) Partnership, and is co-lead of the Semiconductor Industry Association nanotechnology environmental health and safety working group to encourage responsible and sustainable development of nanotechnology and proactive safe nanotechnology worker protection practices.

Lauren Heine, Ph.D., advises organizations seeking to integrate green chemistry and engineering into product and process design and development activities as Principal for the Lauren Heine Group and a Senior Science Advisor with Clean Production Action. She was previously the Director of Applied Science at GreenBlue where she directed the development of CleanGredients™, a unique, web-based information platform, developed in partnership with the U.S. EPA Design for the Environment Program

Dale Johnson, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Professor in Molecular Toxicology at UC Berkeley and President & CEO of Emiliem, Inc. He has extensive experience in the healthcare industry working in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on drug discovery and development and risk/benefit assessments related to human health. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology and co-editor of the journal The Chemistry of Metabolic and Toxicological Processes, Current Opinion in Drug Discovery & Development.

Michael Kirschner, President of Design Chain Associates, LLC, has worked in engineering and engineering management for such electronics companies as Compaq, Tandem Computers, Intergraph, and Intel. Design Chain Associates helps manufacturers understand and develop proactive strategies and tactics to comply with international environmental regulations as well as customer and Non-Governmental Organization influences and requirements that impact their products.

Richard Liroff, Ph.D., founded and serves as Executive Director of the Investor Environmental Health Network, a group of investment management organizations advised by environmental health advocates, working to reduce production and use of toxic chemicals by business. He is author/editor of a half-dozen books and more than 50 articles and reports on environmental policy.

Timothy F. Malloy, J.D., is a Professor of Law, and a Faculty Director of the UCLA Law and Environmental Health Sustainable Technology Policy Program. He is a Co-Director of the School of Law's Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic and a member of the UC Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology.

Scott Matthews, Ph.D., is the Research Director of the Green Design Institute and Associate Professor in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Matthews serves as chair of the Committee on Sustainable Systems and Technology with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Roger McFadden, is the Chief Scientist for Staples CE and has worked as a formulating and consulting chemist and product design engineer for several product manufacturing companies in the U.S. and Canada. He is a charter member of the Green Chemistry Commerce Council (GC3).

Kelly Moran, Ph.D., is President of TDC Environmental, LLC, an environmental consulting firm specializing in water quality and pollution prevention. She co-founded the Brake Pad Partnership and the Urban Pesticides Pollution Prevention Project and sits on the California Source Reduction Advisory Committee.

Oladele A. Ogunseitan, Ph.D., M.P.H., is Professor and Chair in the Program in Public Health, College of Health Sciences at U.C. Irvine, where he is also a Professor of Social Ecology. He directs the Research and Education in Green Materials component of U.C.´s Systemwide Toxic Substances Research & Teaching Program. He is Principal Investigator of a National Science Foundation funded project on Biocomplexity in the Environment: Materials Use, Science, Engineering and Society (MUSES).

Robert Peoples, Ph.D., is the Director of the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute® and has been a member of American Chemical Society (ACS) for 35 years. He serves on several local and national boards including the Carpet America Recovery Effort, Georgia Pollution Prevention Advisory Board, and Green Standard.org. He is a member of several organizations including the National Recycling Coalition, Society of Plastics Engineers, and the American Chemical Society.

Julia Quint, Ph.D., is a public health scientist and retired Chief of the Hazard Evaluation System and Information Service (HESIS), an occupational health program in the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). Julia currently serves on the Scientific Guidance Panel of the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program, the Tracking Implementation Advisory Group of the California Environmental Health Tracking Program, the Cal/OSHA Health Experts Advisory Committee, and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Tetrachloroethylene.

Julie Schoenung, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at U.C. Davis, and a Co-Director for the University of California Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program Lead Campus in Green Materials.

Megan R. Schwarzman, M.D., M.P.H, is a research scientist with the Program in Green Chemistry and Chemicals Policy at U.C. Berkeley Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH), School of Public Health. She was a co-author of the 2008 report to Cal/EPA, Green Chemistry: Cornerstone to a Sustainable California.

Anne Wallin, Ph.D., is the Director of Sustainable Chemistry for Dow Chemical Company and leads the company's Life Cycle Assessment Expert Group. She is a member of the External Advisory Board for the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan and a co-author of several publications and patents.

John Warner, Ph.D., is the President and CTO of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry. He established the world's first Green Chemistry Ph.D. program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and is co-author of the book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, which first described the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry.

Michael P. Wilson, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a research scientist at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH), School of Public Health at U.C. Berkeley, where he conducts research and practice in environmental health sciences and science policy. He is the chief author of a 2006 UC report, commissioned by the California Legislature, Green Chemistry in California: A Framework for Leadership in Chemicals Policy and Innovation.

Julie Zimmerman, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed in the School of Engineering and Applied Science (Environmental Engineering Program) and the School of Forestry and Environment at Yale University. She also serves as the Associate Director for Research for the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale.